Featured Artist | Alejandrina Herrera

*Kinds of Puzzles No. 1,* Pencil on paper, 24 x 18, $1,600

HANNAH REEVES: Could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your background? How did you come to be an artist?

ALEJANDRINA HERRERA: I’m a 31 year old artist from the north east Mexico. I was born in Monterrey Nuevo Leon, and as is very common here, I grew up surrounded by my family and my extensive amount of cousins. Running at my grandparents’ ranch trying to chase hens from the barn. I’ve always loved drawing as an exercise or even a hobby, something I use to let my mind go, but it wasn’t until I choose my BA in Arts that I really think of drawing in a professional way.

HR: Your drawing is done with such extreme technical skill, and you seem to use that proficiency to a conceptual end. How do you think about the combination of imaginary, meaning-driven subject matter and technical, classical execution?

AH: I like to take the pencil’s possibilities as far as I can, so the audience may doubt about the media in which the piece is made. In most of the cases, I even use the skill itself as part of the conceptual idea of every piece, because I think the “perfection”, or even exageration, of the technique I tend to present, is a very important part of my work’s statement.

*Addition*, Pencil and watercolor on paper, 20 x 28, $2,600

HR: What does your creative process look like?

AH: I’m an image hoarder, always looking thru old pictures (familiar or not). I tend to keep them in files under keywords that will remember me of that particular idea I had in that moment. I need to do this since I work very slow with every piece sometimes it takes me more than a month to finish one depending on the size and complexity of the image.

HR: What other artists do you admire?

AH: Recently I’ve been looking thru Felicia Forte’s work, I think it is amazing, Cayce Zavaglia, Ramiro Martinez Plasencia, Henrique de Franca.

HR: Do you have a studio quirk – something particular to you and your space that spurs your creative flow?

AH: Sure I do. I have a (not so big) vintage toys collection which is my pride and joy. That kind of nostalgia keeps me going day by day.